Merlin,
Just as a suggestion: In most of my applications, we have a security layer
which is implemented through server-side functions. These functions keep a
table updated which contains:
lock_table
record_id
lock_user
time_locked
This allows us to avoid nasty "your update cannot be processed"-type error
messages by showing the user up front which records are locked, as well as
allowing the admin to decide when locks should "time out".
I tend to find in general that database locking mechanisms are a very poor
locking strategy for a good UI.
--
Josh Berkus
josh(at)agliodbs(dot)com
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco